


orchid

by nonbinaryezrabridger



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: During Canon, F/F, Furiosa was a wife, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, and... - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinaryezrabridger/pseuds/nonbinaryezrabridger
Summary: Toast falls in love as slowly as the Dag's plants grow.
Relationships: Furiosa/Toast the Knowing
Kudos: 23





	orchid

**Author's Note:**

> tw for this story:
> 
> nongraphic violence, discussions of death

\--------

Toast is in her little corner of the dome room, as far away from the beds where her sisters sit as she can get. She needs her space sometimes, and so do they. They take turns, sharing the corner where they can be as alone as possible. Still, she can hear Cheedo’s voice clear as daylight:

“It’s a woman.”

Dag responds:

“What?”

Cheedo continues, sounding bewildered:

“The guard outside the door. It’s a woman.”

For a moment the Dag’s eyes light up, before Cheedo continues:

“She’s wearing imperator’s black, her hair is short as can be, and she holds a rifle.”

Dag, as quick to change as the weather, snaps:

“A woman mayhaps, but no friend of ours.”

Cheedo looks a little hurt.

“How do you know?”

Dag snarls:

“She’s the one who brought me here.”

That ends the conversation, as any mention of their capture always does. Still, Toast stands and walks over to the door, knocking lightly on the massive metal door. As if Joe needs the massive vault door to keep them here. Perhaps he does it simply to remind them of their imprisonment. Or more likely it’s to keep others out, so that no one may touch his treasures. 

At the knock, the door swings open. Toast steps out, bare feet insect light and skittering on the floor, and walks towards the guard-woman. She doesn’t look at Toast. Toast looks at her, drinking in every detail. It’s mostly what she expected, except the woman’s steely eyes are blue as the sky is. They stand in silence for a long moment before the imperator speaks, voice even and cold as could be:

“You know you’re not supposed to knock unless you need something.”

Toast smirks. She’s not afraid of the old man or his punishments. He’s stopped beating her, he knows the only thing that works is to beat her sisters in her place. That keeps her in line most of the time, but this, she thinks, is worth hurting her sisters for.

She says:

“I do need something.”

The imperator asks, still not looking toast in the eye:

“What?”

Toast snarls:

“For you to look at me.”

Finally, the imperator’s head centers and she looks at Toast, blue eyes meeting brown, equally harsh in their own ways. Toast grins victoriously and says:

“I am not a thing. But you know that, don’t you?”

The imperator doesn’t flinch. She asks:

“What gave me away?”

Toast leans back against the stone wall and says:

“Joe may not be smart enough to recognize the fabric of your shirt, but I am.”

The imperator finally makes an expression, a smile rising on her face.

“You’re smart all right. Now get back in the vault.”

Toast plants her feet and doesn’t move.

Furiosa glares before she sighs and says:

“What will get you back in the vault?”

“Your name.”

The imperator grits her teeth, but says:

“Furiosa.”

Toast lets the name curl off her tongue:

“Furiosa.”

And walks back into the vault with her head held high. 

\------------------

They sit in the darkness of the night, so deep and complete, without the lights of the dome to brighten it. Toast has a soft vulvalini blanket wrapped around her, but it doesn’t fully keep out the cold. She wants to go curl up with her sisters, wrap herself up in their warmth, but her eye is caught by a lone form.

Furiosa sits, ramrod straight, no sign of her grief in her body language. Toast considers going over to her, but she remembers how she was after her parents were killed. The warboys had thought she couldn’t talk as they brought her back to the citadel, she was so silent. She had needed time alone, and she hadn’t gotten it. 

Now, she at least can give Furiosa that.

So she walks up to the intertwined forms of Dag and Cheedo and joins them instead.

\--------------------

Toast is pulled from the embrace of the war rig’s back seat by a polecat, much like she was pulled from clutching her dead mother’s body. She is carried across a terrifyingly high drop only to be released into something worse. The imperator in the back of the car leers at her and grabs her, pushing her into the cab. Joe grunts victoriously and raises a lone finger. She trembles at being near him again. He gestures towards the window and the imperator forces Toast up against it, wriggling in a pointless struggle that she nonetheless feels she should make. It takes a moment for her eyes to focus enough to look out and there, across the distance between the cars, she meets Furiosa’s eyes.

Furiosa glares like Toast has never seen her glare before, the rage boiling in her eyes. Toast gasps at that promise in those steely blue eyes, a promise of death on her tormentor and freedom for her. She realizes then that she truly trusts Furiosa. Toast must be ready, ready to jump on any opportunity given to her by Furiosa. So she struggles against the imperator holding her and bides her time.

\------------

Furiosa asks to be left alone while she heals from her stab wound. The other sisters are slightly upset at not being able to comfort one they’ve come to see as their own. But Toast understands why Furiosa asks it of them; she knows the urge to lick your wounds in private, to not have your weakness laid bare to your closest ones. Especially as a former imperator, she would want to hide as she healed. 

The surviving vuvalini, who act as healers, give them updates on her progress. They say she’s healing well, without infections. Toast waits patiently for the day when she can see Furiosa again, and soon enough her patience is rewarded. 

Furiosa arrives with the soft shifting of sand under boots. Toast, who’s grown more and more attuned to sounds as she’s learned how to survive outside the dome, turns to look at her. 

She looks less godly than she did before, and more like a person. The imperator's black grease is gone, as is the symbol hanging around her waist. She’s wearing her usual pants, but an unusually loose and billowy shirt, probably meant to make it easier for the Vuvalini to reach her wound. She’s got the slightest hint of a smile on her face as she watches Toast sorting tools. Toast doesn’t stop the motion as she says:

“I didn’t know you were up.”

Furiosa speaks with a blunt honesty:

“I came to you first.”

Toast smiles down at the wrench she’s holding, but asks:

“And why is that?”

Then Furiosa is stepping closer to whisper:

“Because you saved me. Joe would have shot me, if you hadn’t interfered.”

Toast aches at Furiosa’s closeness, wants to press their sides together and feel her warmth. But instead she just says:

“And you saved me. You ripped his face off and freed me. I’d say we’re even.”

Furiosa breaks into a grin.

“To save and be saved. What a glorious feeling.”

Toast smiles up at her and hands her a rusty pair of pliers.

“Help me sort?”

Furiosa throws herself into the work, and as they sort, they inch closer together. Finally their sides touch, just as Toast had imagined, and she smiles a secret smile to herself.

\-----------------

They sit in the newly grown gardens, listening to Dag’s little girl giggle as she runs through the rows of plants on the other side. They are shielded by walls of corn, growing tall and tough. THe row is small, forcing them to sit close together. Still, they have chosen to sit closer together than is necessary. Furiosa had picked a flower on the way over and is twirling it in between her fingers. Then a light comes into her eyes, an idea forming, and she turns to Toast. 

“It would suit you, in your hair.”

Toast is growing her hair out now that she is free to be beautiful without Joe’s slobbering over it. She pictures the flower, bright against her hair, and nods. Furiosa leans forwards and presses it into her hair, just above her left ear and then stops. It leaves them pressed together, almost chest to chest, face to face. Furiosa stares intently, something important in her eyes, and says:

“I would kiss you, if you wanted me to.”

Toast can’t but smile widely; how long she’s been waiting to hear those words. She says:

“I very much want you to.”

Furiosa smiles and leans in the last couple inches and their lips meet. Furisoa is gentle and soft, and Toast glories in the fact that she feels no fear.

\-----------------------


End file.
